How did social workers ignore years of red flags before Adrian Jones death?

Kansas social workers and police were suspicious about how Adrian Jones’s stepmother abused the child for years before he was starved to death and fed to pigs, according to documents recently unsealed by a court. But a lack of coordination with Missouri officials apparently left the boy unprotected as the family moved across state lines.

The seven-year-old starved to death and his corpse was left rotting in a shower stall for weeks before he was fed to pigs in his family’s backyard in 2015, according to investigators. Video and photographs of Adrian’s last year document months of torture, including the child’s being forced to stand outside in freezing temperatures and handcuffed to an inversion table.

Kansas City 41 Action News reporter Jessica McMaster searched the 2,000-page file documented the Kansas Department of Children and Families four years of work on the case for clues about how the system failed Adrian. She discussed what she found with Nancy Grace in this “Crime Stories” episode.

While both Heather and Michael Jones have pled guilty to murder, none of the social workers or other officials charged with protecting the boy have been called to account for failures that led to Adrian’s abuse and death. Grace suggested local prosecutors and the attorneys general of both states should investigate the possibility of holding government employees accountable. She is calling on concerned podcast listeners to call or email the prosecutors.